Converting Japan to Communism One Manga at a Time

I reported previously that Japanese youth is turning to communism lately. The book Kanikōsen was a hit, and it looks like we might see another one. The “publishing phenomenon of the year” will be unleashed next month: manga based on Das Kapital by Karl Marx…

The comic, which goes on sale early next month, plays into a growing fascination among Japan’s hard-working labour force with socialist literature and joins a collection of increasingly fierce literary critiques of the global capitalist system.

In recent decades, while Japan Inc was still delivering collective prosperity to the nation, public criticism of companies has been muted. Unions were weak and acquiescent. But now, as the country sinks into its second recession in seven year, the sackings begin and the gap widens between rich and poor, a growing number of Japanese believe the problem lies with capitalism itself.

The ambitious comic rendering of Das Kapital is designed to parcel the complex economic theories of Marx’s hefty original in a format which Japanese adore digesting their information from; it will also be compressed into a size that can be slipped discretely into a Chanel evening bag, or slid into the top drawer of a desk when the bosses are looking.

Published by Kitsune

6 thoughts on “Converting Japan to Communism One Manga at a Time”

Funnily enough, I had a massive argument with my History teacher the other day who claimed that Japan was communist during the war.
Socialism is lovely in theory but the fact if human greed will never allow it to flourish without shady methods of enforcement.